Cameras are rolling, telephones are ringing and consumers are buying hundreds of millions of dollars in products from television shopping networks. But don’t let the bright lights and smooth pitches lure you into ordering a product you don’t really want or one you might buy for a cheaper price in a local store.
On shopping networks, traditional catalog sales come to life, with hosts hawking everything from jewelry to loungewear to kitchen appliances. Customers, who are watching the program on television at home, dial toll-free numbers to order products. On some networks, deals have strict time limits, with a so-called discount price available only for minutes while the product is displayed on the screen. The networks claim their products are sold for less than retail price.
About 6 percent to 8 percent of the shows’ viewers purchase items, according to the Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc. in Arlington, Va. About 60 million U.S. homes have access to television shopping programs, according to a survey conducted this year by the Newspaper Advertising Bureau, a trade organization in New York that does training and research for the newspaper industry.
Television shopping networks will have $1.5 billion in revenues in 1987, according to the Direct Marketing Association, a New York-based trade group. That’s only a trickle compared with catalogs — which the association said will rack up $30 billion to $40 billion in sales this year — but it represents a respectable foothold in the market for the networks, which have only been on the air for about five years.
Home Shopping Network Inc. of Clearwater, CVN Inc. of Minneapolis and QVC Network Inc. of West Chester, Pa., can be seen in parts of east Central Florida.
A BBB study shows that the shopping networks inflate at least some of their standard prices to make their so-called discount prices appear more tempting. In 1,818 shopping expeditions, workers from 17 Better Business Bureaus tried to find products shown on shopping networks in stores and catalogs to compare the store price with the network price.
The workers found only 14 percent of the products from the shopping networks, said BBB research writer Kristin Shirk. Discontinued items were among the products they couldn’t find, she said. In 96 percent of the cases in which they found the products, the store or catalog prices were lower than the retail prices quoted by the networks. In 37 percent of the cases, the store or catalog prices were lower than the shopping network’s actual selling price.
Many of the products the BBB couldn’t find are probably sold only by a shopping network, Shirk said. For example, QVC sells a type of synthetic gem that isn’t available in stores, network chairman Joseph M. Segel said.
Trying to decide whether the price is fair or how much “discount” the network is offering is virtually impossible when there is no point of comparison, Shirk said. “It’s troublesome when you have an exclusive product and you give a regular price,” she said.
Usually, the QVC network gets the suggested price from the manufacturer, Segel said. A manufacturers’ suggested retail price is often higher than market prices, according to the BBB. QVC gets better prices by buying in bulk, Segel said.
Home Shopping Network spokeswoman Judy Ludin said the network can charge lower prices than stores because it keeps a highly selective inventory and doesn’t waste money on stocking a large number of items that aren’t hot sellers.
The retail prices quoted for the products — which are usually displayed and available for purchase for about seven or eight minutes — are carefully researched, she said.
The networks’ hottest-selling item is gold jewelry, said Karen Generelli, manager of media relations at the marketing association. Jewelry accounts for 25 percent of home shopping network sales, followed by housewares with 20 percent, clothing and other soft goods with 15 percent and electronic equipment with 10 percent, she said.
Networks have discovered through surveys that their prime customers are women from upscale households with annual incomes of $40,000 or more, Generelli said. The products and the pitch have grown more sophisticated to appeal to this group.
The average adult viewer makes two purchases a year, ranging in price from $40 to $80 each, according to the Newspaper Advertising Bureau survey.
The attraction of buying by television wears off for most viewers, and the longer they have the service, the less likely they are to buy from it, the survey said. About 11 percent of the subscribers tune in twice a week or more. The networks are not regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. In Florida, you should contact the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services if you have inquiries or complaints.
The department has received only four written complaints about Home Shopping Network and none for other television shopping networks in the last two years, said Joe Alexionok, senior complaint analyst at the department. Three of the complaints were resolved or dropped.
The most recent complaint was from a consumer who was unhappy with the quality of an inexpensive piece of jewelry, Alexionok said.
There is no Florida law to monitor return of merchandise, although a business must post a sign if it does not accept returns, Alexionok said.
The return rate in the television shopping industry ranges from 8 percent to 17 percent, according to the BBB study.
Both Home Shopping Network and QVC say they refund money for a purchase if it is returned within 30 days of purchase.
But to avoid the hassle of returning merchandise, consumers should beware before they buy. Bonnie Poe, director of education at the non-profit Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Central Florida Inc., warns consumers not to get carried away by the excitement of the shopping networks. “It’s not just a game,” Poe said. “You really are spending money.”
